Thank you @LF and thank you too @Kingsfanone… so far so good… a little jaundice so we’ll have that checked out at our first appt either Monday or Tuesday. We’re home now and trying to keep up with our boy on about 3 or 4 30-45 minute naps throughout the night… I’m starting to know what it feels like to be a zombie… oh well, it’s all part of the ride!!

My grandson was also born in that neck of the woods…..near Laguna Woods to be exact. Saddleback Hospital in April this year.

]]>By: Stuarthttp://lakingsinsider.com/2012/10/19/pictures-from-clinic-in-simi-valley/#comment-1760922
Sat, 20 Oct 2012 02:20:45 +0000http://lakingsinsider.com/?p=25891#comment-1760922@Lake Forest, as a matter o fact, we just delivered today and are currently resting in our hospital room over in your neck of the woods! Lyndyn was born at 3:11 this afternoon weighing in at 7lb8oz and measuring 19in long!!! thank you for thinking of us @LF!!!
]]>By: DesertKinghttp://lakingsinsider.com/2012/10/19/pictures-from-clinic-in-simi-valley/#comment-1760912
Sat, 20 Oct 2012 02:06:57 +0000http://lakingsinsider.com/?p=25891#comment-1760912@Stuart,

that’s a by product of the overall economy and most salaries in most all industries in the middle-classes are not keeping pace with the average cost of living…

in the NHL’s case, i’m making the argument that it’s nobody’s fault but the league’s that we are in this position…:

– poor expansion…
– poor financial background checks ensuring an owner’s bonafides and actual revenue…
– poor decisions saving markets that can’t and shouldn’t be saved….
– the GM’s circumventing salary cap rules to keep marquee players…
– the GM’s and owners paying more for marginal talent…
– the league’s failure to get cooperation from both cities and franchise owners to equitably share costs in the case of building new arenas…
– financially supporting phoenix for two years…
– financially helping the islanders and their mission to fund a new arena – this is going on ten years now…
– financially helping new jersey…

these choices are solely the NHL’s – not the players…and all these decisions cost money – the league’s money…in turn, swallowing profitability for the league as a whole…

how much money the league has actually spent in all the aforementioned ventures is unclear…and that’s because the NHL won’t reveal those expenses publicly…

my suspicions are that the league has a very curious way of managing their books and practices in the same accounting procedures that the kings got caught doing a few years back, when a fan challenged the kings’ claim that they lost $7 million one season…

after he got permission to review the kings” books, he concluded that technically, the kings could claim a $7 million dollar loss based on their creative accounting…but, it reality, if you were to look at flat out assets and liabilities, the kings actually broke even…

and that’s a major issue – the lack of trust between the owners and the NHLPA…

if the NHL claims the amount of economic growth it’s gained since 2003-04 to be what it is, why can’t a player’s salary grow in congruence with the league revenue increases…?

if the players gave up over $3 billion dollars the last time, why should they be happy giving up another $1.6+ billion in future earnings…?

and those of you who say…”just suck it up, like the rest of us” are not being honest with yourselves…because there’s no way in the world you will convince me that you would take a 30%…20%…or even 10% pay cut without raising hell…

and if you wouldn’t raise hell and try to unionize and fight the good fight on principles alone, yr job probably isn’t worth as much to you as you think anyway…

some of yoots are just so unhappy that there’s no hockey, that yr willing to say and/or believe anything anyone says that offers an end to the lockout – regardless of who gets screwed the most..

the NHL is no different than the NFL or NBA…they each also couldn’t agree on the numbers until that last minute…in this case, the NHL and the NHLPA are both guilty of playing a game of chicken that benefits nobody…

there’s a second side that had to sign off on every single friggin’ deal and penny…why ROGER RABBIT fails to acknowledge is that both sides are equally as culpable in their responsibilities towards past agreements is unclear…he seems to be holding the players to a higher standard than their employers…

this crazy, absurd notion that the expired CBA deal is worthless and not a metric to use in assessing a new deal is completely…well…crazy…(!!!)

i also sense some jealousy (?) about star players making star money…these “primadonna’s” provide you with the product you supposedly love so much – hockey at it’s highest competitive level…if yr not happy with that fact, why do you care about the sport…?

if you rather see replacement players than the conflict resolved in its entirety, then we are 180 degrees apart…we are speaking different languages…similar to what the NHL is claiming…funny…

yr last point is sooooo off-base, sorry to say, but it’s rather comical…:

“At least now it will be spelled out that you can’t circumvent the cap in the same ways they have done for the last 5 years. You guys that lucked out and completed your contracts before the deadline did just that, lucked out. now there are new rules and the rest of the league will have to play by the new rules. The current system was un-sustainable and given the actions of the owners and the players for these circumventing contracts now has to be fixed. figure it our, 5 years, 7 years 9 years probably doesn’t make a difference for the max term and Fehr will just have to live with it. The new rules are for everyone that didn’t get their sweetheart deal before the deadling so suck it up and deal with it we the fans and the owners will have another 10 years to live with these bloated contracts that will affect the entire league makeup until they are gone from the league.”

what in the world are you talking about…?????

the idea to set these cap circumvention deals up came from one of the best GM’s in the league – kenny holland…louie lams followed suit…and so did others to somewhat lesser extents…

the cap circumvention and loopholes were solely infiltrated and initiated by GM’s…with some very minor assistance from the player’s agent…again, agent and player AND GM…and sometimes, the OWNER(S)… ALL have to agree to any deal…

what the latest published NHL proposal is lobbying for makes the third and fourth player contracts at age 28 or at 8 years of service, the most lucrative instead of front loading deals…it also cuts back entry-level deals to a 2 year max…this is all designed by the NHL to create a earnings module that limits a player’s earnings potential until they achieve UFA status…the NHL has also proposed that a player’s second contract cannot be longer than 5 years and can only pay $25 million maximum…as far as i know, that provision is still on the table…

ok..fine…but how is that not reshuffling the deck and just delaying inevitable cap hits and AAV in the later years of someone’s contract…? that player could be retired and the team still owes them money, either through escrow or deferred salary payments and it still goes against the cap…how is that a better idea…?

the whole purpose of this lockout is to restructure the following…:

– the revenue sharing amongst the larger and smaller market teams…10 teams make 50% of the league’s revenue…the smaller markets will have to be compensated by them to simply stay competitive and at whatever the projected salary cap floor will be…i think they are talking about a 59% floor and a 72% ceiling…so, in essence, THE NHL WANTS TEAMS TO SPEND ALMOST $60 MILLION PER SEASON just to comply with it’s proposed salary cap floor…that means, they want all 30 teams to be competitive and not languish at the bottom of the standings or fall behind their economic obligations…

i don’t believe that will ever happen and that the larger market teams will continuously have to bail out the smaller market teams REGARDLESS of how they juxtapose the revenue sharing…the only thing the smaller and larger markets agree upon is that the players should pay for the bill – mostly caused by the NHL’s own mistakes…

one example of a small market team doing everything right from its inception is Nashville…they should be the role models for all smaller markets as to how to succeed in today’s NHL….

and here’s a part of a previous post that brings up other points that you might reconsider…:

“however, it’s important to denote that when a player becomes a free agent or becomes eligible for a new contract, if their performance dictates a significant raise, they will be unable to match what other top players are earning or get fair market value solely because they haven’t been in the league long enough….that’s where it becomes a complicated negotiating issue for the player, their agent and the GM (to a lesser extent)…

if a player, let’s say someone of the caliber of crosby or ovie comes into the league, they can instantly become the face of the league and/or the league’s most talented player..in that player’s first 8 years of service, they won’t be able to make any more than $5 mil/per…that’s not chump change, but it’s not top player money…and that’s the problem i have with this proposal…

you cannot penalize teams for selecting good players and drafting well….sure, there should be cap floors and limits…

if you take anze kopitar’s contract, for example, under the new NHL proposal, he would not be able to make more than $5mil/per during his first 8 years…my point is that the owners are trying to police themselves by limiting a player’s earnings potential throughout the bulk of their early careers….and most players reach their peak at 27-32…by starting UFA’s at 28/8, you are taking away at least a year of earnings potential…and then that amount is used to base future contracts for that player and others of similar composition…”